Foolish Hearts
by Callista Rhapsody
Summary: Or, the quest for the last Horcrux. It is perhaps not advisable to fall in love with the enemy when you're both looking for the same thing in a strange dark world underneath London... alas, the human heart is anything but wise. DracoHermione.


**_Foolish Hearts_**

by Callista Rhapsody

Disclaimer: Let's keep this simple--- anything you recognize is not mine, and no one's paying me. So there.

AN: Well, here it is, the very first chapter of my grand HP/Neverwhere crossover epic. I thought it would be fun to mix the two fandoms and add a little bit of romance (mainly Draco/Hermione) to taste. Suggestions and constructive criticism are most welcome. Now read on...

**CHAPTER ONE: IN WHICH THERE IS A SURPRISE SKIRMISH IN AN ALLEY, AND A SNAKE AND A PHOENIX DO BATTLE, AND THE SECOND-TO-THE-LAST HORCRUX IS DESTROYED**

The sound of falling bodies, screams of pain, crashing debris and shouted commands and incantations rang in Harry Potter's ears, blending quite nicely with the pounding of the blood in his veins and the rapid beating of his own heart. For how long had this fight been going on? Hours, minutes, days--- it was of no consequence, Harry realized. Time did not matter anymore, obliterated by the dangerous and very real threat of death. There was only here, and now, and---

"Harry! Behind you!"

The Boy Who Lived whirled around, just in time to avoid the flash of violet light sent his way by Theodore Nott. _"Conjunctivitis!"_ yelled Harry, and Nott staggered backwards, rubbing his eyes and screaming in pain, before he crashed into the trash cans huddled by the alley wall.

"Thanks, Ron!" Harry called out to his redheaded best friend.

"No problem!" Ron Weasley flashed him a wide grin and a thumbs-up gesture, then returned to his duel with a troll who seemed to be having trouble extricating itself from a tangle of bicycles and scooters. "All right, you ugly bastard, let's see what you've got, more where that came from---"

His most immediate foe having been taken care of for the present, Harry took a deep breath and scanned the battlefield. Well, it wasn't much of a battlefield, considering that it was a dirty little alley in the streets of downtown London, but the battle that was raging would have done justice to Thermopylae. Harry and some other members of the Order of the Phoenix had been on what was nothing more than a routine scouting mission, when they had turned a corner and caught a group of Death Eaters by surprise (and vice versa). Now they were in the thick of it.

_"Incendio!"_ shouted Hermione Granger and Pansy Parkinson's robes burst into flames...

_"Reducto!"_ Vincent Crabbe screamed. Seamus Finnegan fell to the ground with a soft grunt...

"Bloody hell, Zabini, what do you _think_ you're doing?" an irate Draco Malfoy demanded as Blaise (who had been expertly Confused by Parvati Patil) tried to hex him...

Suddenly Harry was aware of a certain wrongness--- as if the world had shivered a little, subtly gone cooler and darker. He turned.

And found himself gazing up into cruel red eyes set in a ghostly white face.

"That will be quite enough," said Voldemort, and even though his voice was little more than a high, chilly whisper, the ruckus died down as every witch and wizard stopped trying to kill each other, and stared.

"I believe this is between you and me, Harry," said the Dark Lord, the corners of his lips twirling into a parody of a smile.

"As you say," Harry replied, gripping his wand. The Death Eaters and the other members of the Order seemed to be holding their breaths.

"Very well. _Avada Kedavra!_"

Harry grabbed the lid from a nearby trash can and held it out in front of him. The Killing Curse bounced off the metal and pummeled a hole deep into the brick wall of one of the buildings.

"Honestly, can't you come up with something new?" Harry taunted, flinging the lid aside. "Seems like every time we battle that's the first curse you shoot at me. _Stupefy!_"

"You know what they say, Harry Potter." Voldemort deflected the Stunning Spell with a lazy flick of his wand. "If at first you don't succeed..."

"Try and try again, I know," said Harry. _"Petrificus Totalus!"_

"Foolish boy," said Voldemort, dodging the flash of light from Harry's wand. "Still playing around with harmless jinxes and Hogwarts hexes. You will never know true power, or perhaps you are just afraid to feel dark magic running through your veins... _Incarcerous!_"

Harry moved a split second too late. Ropes appeared out of thin air and wrapped themselves around his body, tying his feet together and forcibly binding his hands behind his back. He fell down, panting.

Hermione screamed his name. Ron moved forward, but a couple of heavyset Death Eaters blocked his path.

"Everyone, stay where you are!" Harry ordered his colleagues. During his duel with Voldemort, the Death Eaters and the Order had gathered around to watch, and were now shoulder-to-shoulder against each other in the narrow alley. If a fight broke out at such close quarters, the results would be disastrous--- and anyway, he did not want his friends taking Voldemort on, for they would be no match against him.

"Your friends can't help you now, Harry Potter." Voldemort's tone was cold and sardonic, like a snake sliding on the ground... and indeed, there was a snake flowing out of the sleeve of his robe. Harry's green eyes widened as he recognized the serpent Nagini.

"He's all yours, my darling," Voldemort crooned to the snake. "A quick bite, and maybe a little more. Pour your poison into his blood. Fill him with your venom..."

Nagini hissed and slithered towards Harry, who struggled to free himself from the ropes which bound him. His wand was still in his hand, he realized (and somewhere in the back of his head was Alastor Moody, nodding in a brisk way. "That's good, Potter. Remember, no matter what happens, a wizard must never let go of his wand.") If only he could just---

He could see his own reflection in the depths of Nagini's golden eyes. The snake opened her mouth, baring her sharp fangs, poised to strike---

Phoenix song. Everyone looked up.

And a flurry of red and gold shot down from the sky and fell upon Nagini.

"Fawkes?" Harry whispered.

Voldemort's nostrils flared. "That is Dumbledore's bird! Kill it, my sweet."

The two creatures fought, tumbling and rolling, sibilant hisses mingling with sharp cries, beaks and talons clashing against teeth and coils, flashes of scarlet blazing and flashes of emerald gleaming, an elaborate, rushing dance of poison and fire. And, finally, Fawkes' talons ripped Nagini's soft underbelly, and the blood flowed out of the snake, spilling on the dirty ground. There was a burst of blinding white-hot light, Voldemort's scream of rage, Fawkes' triumphant song...

Wasting no time, Harry spun around, his hands still tied behind his back, and, in a maneuver that would have made Mad-Eye Moody beam, shot a curse at Voldemort. The spell hit the Dark Lord squarely in the chest.

What happened after that was never quite clear to Harry. All he knew was that the ropes loosened and slipped away, and he had collapsed to the ground facefirst, wincing in pain as his spectacles cracked and his nose broke. He sat up, trying to adjust his glasses, trying to ignore the numbness in his nose, trying to see... There was madness and chaos as the Death Eaters and the Order were jolted into action, and the phoenix was taking wing again, soaring high into the sky, and he, Harry, was staring at Nagini's lifeless body which lay in a pool of her own blood. The realization dawned on him that Fawkes had just destroyed another Horcrux.

That meant...

"Harry! Harry, come _on!_"

"Herm---"

"No time to talk, Harry, the Death Eaters are on the run, we have to report back to headquarters! And the Muggles who were injured have to be treated as soon as possilbe--- oh, what a mess!"

"But--- Voldemort---"

"_Later,_ Harry. We have to go _now!_"

_Fawkes killed Nagini, _Harry thought numbly as they Apparated back to Grimmauld Place. _Only one left to go. One more. It's almost over._


End file.
